lawmummy

No, not mine. Don’t freak out. But I can totally see how this could happen…

And so many things circulating in my head. This is one of those “wish this blog were anonymous” moments.

It’s 6am. I need to get back to sleep. But stop by later. I might have news.

Apparently this is what my daughter is learning about slavery…

While driving through the rural South today, Katie announced that she wanted to see where the slaves live.

The what?

The slaves.

“There aren’t any slaves anymore,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says. Then she asks, “Are there no slaves because they left in the middle of the night to go to Philadelphia on the Railroad?”

“You’re talking about the Underground Railroad. Some of the slaves did get free on the Underground Railroad. But not all of them. The reason that there are no slaves anymore is because it’s not allowed.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not nice,” I say. “Nobody has slaves anymore. Everybody is free.”

Explaining the concepts of slavery and emancipation to a five year old are more difficult than I thought.

“Oh. Where are their houses?”

“What houses?”

“The houses that they left to be slaves.”

“Oh, those houses aren’t really here. Those houses are in Africa. When people took the slaves away, the slaves had to leave their houses behind.”

She ponders this for a moment.

“So I won’t see any slave houses?”

“No.” But then I tell her that I will try to take her to see where some slaves lived on tomorrow - we will be in Wilmington and I know that the Bellamy Mansion has slave quarters which you can view.

She’s satisfied for awhile.

Then she sees some old shanties by the side of the road.

“Mom, are those slave houses?” she asks.

“No, Kate. Those are regular houses.”

“Then why are they falling down?”

“Because the people that live there don’t have the money to fix them,” I tell her.

“Because they’re poor?”

“Yes, because they’re poor.”

“So they’re poor people’s houses?”

“Yes,” I say, thinking that she suddenly sounds like Paris Hilton.

She does have a concept of poor. We’ve talked before about how we are very lucky to live in a warm house with food on the table. She has sorted through her belongings to find things to donate. My mother was remarkable about making sure that we always understood that we were better off than others - even when we were poor ourselves. This is something that I have endeavored to pass along to my own children. Clearly, I have work to do.

She was mostly silent for a bit and then changed the conversation.

I wanted to say some more about slavery and the South - I don’t want her to have this connotation in her head without some context - but I didn’t. The moment had passed.

But gosh. What a thing to have to address.

We are such city people. It is easy to forget - we don’t live in the midst of skyscrapers and subways in our city home. We are neither Sex and the City nor Friends - our days are not spent meeting in coffee houses down the block and we don’t spend our nights clubbing. But we still have a very urban existence, one that is most apparent when contrasted by the very surburban/previously rural existence of my parents.

For starters, people drive everywhere here in the suburbs/country. Everywhere. If we need milk, we drive. If we need shampoo, we drive. Everywhere. As a result, there is a phenomenal amount of traffic - it far exceeds the Philadelphia traffic per capita, which is really difficult to get my head around.

Next, mailboxes and paperboxes. My children are now obsessed with them. On a recent walk down the street from my parents’ house, the girls opened every single mailbox and looked in every paperbox. When Amy got to take the newspaper out of the paperbox at my parents’ house, she was in heaven. The newspaper! It’s in a box. Katie was perplexed. She wanted to know why the mail would be put into a box. I never thought to think that this was different. I explained that it would take the mailman a very long time to deliver the mail to the doors with the long driveways. This seemed to satisfy her.

Similarly, in the city, it is not unusual to walk through someone’s yard to get where you need to go. My girls regularly climb up neighbor Molly’s steps to get to our house. We spent much of yesterday telling the girls to get out of the neighbors’ yards - my parents don’t really even know many of the neighbors since they are so spread out. Katie could not understand why the neighbors would not want you in the yard - and further, she didn’t understand why my mom didn’t know who the neighbors were. After all, she has quite a comfort level with our neighbors, the crazy neighbor next door excepted.

And just before bedtime last night, I let Lyle out into the backyard. It was pitch black. Blacker than pitch black. And Lyle is black. Not the best of combinations. He took off towards the compost pile where apparently a family of raccoons or possums were feasting. I could hear the commotion but I could only see the flashing light on Lyle’s collar. I called for him several times but just had to wait for him to return. Fortunately, he meandered back up to the porch eventually.

But the biggest sign of being out of the city was made obvious at dinner time. We met my dad for dinner at quarter to 5pm. That isn’t the unusual part - my parents are early eaters. The strange part was that we were not alone - the pizza parlor was nearly full and it was quite a large place. 5pm. Chris and I always find this odd when we visit. We have definitely become earlier eaters now that we have kids, so this I get, but the mix of patrons represented a wide demographic - not just seniors or those with children. It seems that the whole area eats early. This is much different than Philadelphia - when you can always be assured a seat if you come before 6:30pm and where “rush hour” for dinner lasts until 8pm, easily.

I keep looking for the slower pace of life that I thought I remembered - and what is so often touted about the southern coast. I’ve decided that it’s a misnomer. Perhaps some things are slower - but it doesn’t make the pace of life any more relaxing. Traffic still zooms along. People still rush about to get home (though I’m not quite sure why). Buffets and fast food restaurants are wildly popular - folks want their food quickly. Drive thrus abound - you need not even get out of your car to get a cup of coffee (admittedly, I was thankful for this last night).

It’s all a fallacy. The idea that cities are moving 24/7 may make them seem faster paced and busy. But just because something is always going on doesn’t mean that it’s not relaxing. In fact, I’d argue the opposite. I can walk up to the cafe from my office and sit as long as I want, munching on a fresh cannoli, listening to old men shoot the breeze in Italian. I can sit on my front porch, watching the world go by, without fear that my children might get run over by a car in a hurry to get… somewhere. I can hop a subway train to Center City for dinner and not have to wait - in fact, in a Cracker Barrel-less existence, I can almost always be guaranteed a table somewhere without excessive waits or being summoned by a vibrating disk.

My life in the city? It can be exciting. It can be busy. But it can also be relaxing. Trust me.

I am freezing.

Considering that the low last night was 58 degrees, I fully expect that it is a balmy 65 degrees outside. I say balmy because we left behind several 40something degree days in Philadelphia for a row for sunny North Carolina.

And nonetheless, I am sniffly and cold.

Why? My father is an air-conditioning addict. It is one of those things that I have forgotten about many southern homes, having spent so many years up north with the windows open… This idea of keeping your home sealed tight and refrigerated so that you have no real idea what it’s like outside is foreign to me now, though I spent my entire childhood in this very house.

I understand the merits of air conditioning in the summer. I have spent many 90something degree days at nearly 100% humidity and came to love air conditioning. But so many homes are built to accommodate air conditioning - meaning that the windows are either sealed or never open, there is no thought given to cross-ventilation, big heavy doors remain shut at all times. And folks acclimate themselves to this way of life - my father now gets absolutely hot when it’s above 75 degrees. 75! 75 and sunny to me is perfection. For my dad, and others who spend their days “chilling out” constantly, it’s far too hot. So now, in the house, it remains between 65 and 69 degrees at all times. Unless you actually leave the house, you have no idea of the temperature. But even then, there’s a challenge…

You see, my parents, like so many suburban dwellers, have a large attached garage to their home with an automatic garage door opener. The car remains parked inside at all times - never on the parking pad. In theory, my parents - like much of suburbia - can walk from their air conditioned house into their garage and get into their air conditioned car without ever getting a real sense of what the weather is outside. They can then drive to an air-conditioned building where they can spend their day blissfully unaware of what’s going on outside. What’s the fun in that?

As for me? Today, I feel like a bottle of wine being chilled for dinner.

I can’t wait to get outside…

I know, I know. I have much to catch up on… My garden for one! I missed Green Thumb Sunday but I do have a great picture of my new magnolia tree to share.

I’m on my way to NC today to visit with my family. Chris and I were trying to figure out last night when we were down last and drew a blank.

Mom took the train up over the week to go down with me. I am taking the whole kit and caboodle - dog included. Chris will remain in Philly to tend to the office and train down later in the week.

I hope everyone has a great week - I’ll keep you posted!

The two don’t mix.

I’m just saying.

About this time tomorrow, we will be winging our way home from the. worst. vacation. ever.

I feel guilty saying it because it took so much in the way of planning.  My wonderful friends agreed to watch the girls while we were away.  We found a fabulous little cottage in the most quaint little town.  It had the makings of a phenomenal vacation.  And it all went terribly, horribly wrong.

Charlie has vomited and has had diarrhea off and on since Saturday.  It is now Thursday and yes, this morning, I was greeted at about 6am with a handful of throw up.  At least it has slowed down - on Saturday, it was coming about three times per hour.

We spent awhile on Tuesday at the doctor’s office.  I was concerned about Charlie’s level of hydration - the doctor said that he was “dry” but not yet dehydrated.  She gave us a 12 hour window for him to get better before she would recommend an IV.  Clearly, this was not an option that we were excited about so far from home.

Chris and I were not better off earlier in the week.  Chris, fortunately, did not get hit with the vomiting - but I did.  It was not pleasant.

The weather was not much better.  We were at the southeast coast of England for what was dubbed the “worst storm of the winter.”  Gale force winds, heavy rains and gray skies.

Despite all of this, I tried to keep my chin up.  At some point, however, it was impossible.

I will be traveling home more tired, more dispirited, more pessimistic than when I first started.

Wow.

The fun just never ends, does it?

On Thursday night, as Chris and I were preparing to go to London with Charlie the next day, Amy came down with yet another variation of the plague that will not die.  Vomit and more vomit.

I took her to the doctor on Friday.  The good news was that she wasn’t as bad as Katie had been and was expected to make a speedy recovery.  The bad news was that it would not be before we left

A flurry of phone calls to USAir, my mother and Amy’s godparents (who were to watch her and Katie whilst we were in the UK) entailed.  The decision?  We would still go.

The flight was fairly uneventful.  The sub-B crew was on - I’m not quite sure they weren’t drunk.  The flight attendant was largely unintelligible and he didn’t know what they were serving for dinner (he announced “chunks of chicken in a mushroom cream sauce” only to replace it a few moments later with “barbecue beef”).  Dinner was atrocious.  Hands down, the worst food that I have ever eaten on a plane - and it was nonsensical to boot.  We had warm, mushy pasta served with cold, mushy pasta as a side.  It was dreadful.

We had a small train mishap but nonetheless made it to our cottage in Rye.  Both the cottage and Rye are absolutely lovely.  After a brief wander, we were both prepared for a fabulous week.  Until the vomiting started.  Yep, Charlie started the round, vomiting about three times an hour through the night.  Poor baby could not even hold his head up.  A little while later, it hit me.  And a little while later, Chris got sick.

Now, I don’t know if it was food poisoning (good, it felt like it) or if we got the plague that would not die, but it has changed our week quite a bit.  Today, we largely slept although the weather outside was quite nice for the UK in March.

We hope to feel better tomorrow but no great plans for wandering because what the BBC is terming “the worst storm of the winter” is headed our way with winds expected between 60 and 80 mph.

Send some good vibes our way - we sure need it!

It’s lovely, really.  But two things:

1. Who decided that I needed decaf coffee?  I only had two choices, decaf or decaf.  Wha-huh?
2. I appreciate the little Gilchrist & Soames soaps and shampoos.  They’re pretty and they smell nice.  But who’s great idea was it to make the mouthwash and the shampoo the same color?  I’m just sayin’.